Monday, March 30, 2026

Pasadena Unified to Hold Virtual Town Hall as District Campuses Remain Under Consolidation Review

Pasadena Unified Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco address members of the school district community during an in-person town hall on Monday, Nov. 11, 2025. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now

Tuesday’s online session and evening advisory committee meeting arrive days after 56 speakers opposed closures at the Board

The Pasadena Unified School District will hold a virtual town hall Tuesday morning on its school consolidation process, days after a packed Board of Education meeting where 56 speakers opposed school closures.

Fourteen campuses across Pasadena, Altadena, and Sierra Madre remain under review for possible closure or consolidation as PUSD confronts a projected budget shortfall of $30 million to $35 million for the coming fiscal year and an enrollment decline of roughly 23% over the past decade. The advisory committee guiding the process deferred further narrowing at its most recent meeting, and at the March 26 Board session, 56 speakers — parents, students, teachers, and staff — lined up to oppose closures.

The virtual town hall, scheduled from 9:30 to 11 a.m., will be livestreamed in English and Spanish at pusd.us/townhall and recorded for later viewing at the same address. A separate in-person meeting of the Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee is scheduled for 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the District Education Center, 351 S. Hudson Ave., Room 151.

The SCAC — an advisory body selected from 167 applicants and appointed by Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco — has held three of its seven planned meetings. At the second session on March 9, the committee voted to remove nine schools from the review list: John Muir High School, Pasadena High School, Octavia E. Butler Magnet, Sierra Madre Middle School, Mary W. Jackson STEAM School, Madison Elementary, Sierra Madre Elementary, CIS Academy, and Rose City High School.

The 14 schools still under consideration include two secondary campuses — Blair School and Thurgood Marshall Secondary School — along with Eliot Arts Magnet Middle School, McKinley School, and 10 elementary schools: Altadena Arts Magnet, Don Benito Fundamental, Field, Hamilton, Longfellow Magnet, Norma Coombs, San Rafael, Washington Elementary STEM Magnet, Webster, and Willard.

Altadena Arts Magnet Elementary is the only Altadena campus remaining on the list, a point of particular concern in a community still recovering from the Eaton Fire of January 2025, which damaged or destroyed five PUSD campuses.

Blanco has maintained that the process is open and non-predetermined. In a community message on March 11, she wrote that no school is slated for closure and that the committee may ultimately recommend against closing any campus.

“The Committee will continue its work through several additional rounds and, over time, will likely significantly narrow the number of school(s) to be considered for closure or consolidation,” Blanco said in the same message.

At the March 23 SCAC session — the committee’s most recent — members said they wanted more time before removing additional schools from the list, according to notes from the Pasadena Education Network, an independent parent-advocacy organization whose executive director, Nancy Dufford, has attended all SCAC meetings. That meeting focused on reviewing special programs at each campus.

The March 26 Board meeting drew dozens of speakers opposed to closures. Board President Tina Fredericks proposed reducing each speaker’s time to one minute to accommodate the 56 public-comment cards.

A student identified as Violet, who commutes an hour each way to Thurgood Marshall Secondary School after being displaced by the Eaton Fire, told the Board: “If Marshall closes, I don’t know where I would go or if I would even stay. You’re not just closing the school. You’re losing students.”

Angelica Romero, an Altadena resident whose two seventh-graders attend Marshall, said at the same meeting that the school keeps her family connected to what they have lost. “Closing Marshall would create barriers for our most vulnerable,” Romero said.

The consolidation process is governed by California Assembly Bill 1912, which requires districts under financial distress to conduct a community engagement process and an equity impact analysis before closing schools. The Board established nine evaluation metrics under Resolution 2857, adopted January 22, covering factors including facilities condition, operating costs, special programs, transportation, student demographics, and enrollment.

PUSD’s financial pressures are acute. Enrollment has fallen from 17,267 students in 2014-15 to 13,228 in the current year. The district approved $24.5 million in budget cuts in November and issued layoff notices to more than 160 staff in February. Without one-time Eaton Fire insurance revenue, the district is running a $16.9 million structural deficit in the current year, according to district financial reports.

The SCAC’s remaining meetings are scheduled for April 13, April 27, and May 11, when the committee is expected to deliver its final recommendation to the Board. Public hearings are set for the May 28 and June 11 Board meetings, with a vote on any closures scheduled for June 25. Any approved closures would take effect for the 2027-28 school year.

The town hall is available online at pusd.us/townhall. Community members who wished to submit questions were asked to do so by March 27 at noon via the same website; the recording will be available afterward. The evening SCAC meeting is at 351 S. Hudson Ave., Room 151, Pasadena. SCAC meeting information is available at pusd.us/scac.

“It is important to note that no school is slated to be closed or consolidated at this point in time,” Blanco wrote on March 11, “and that it is possible that the Committee may not recommend any schools for closure.”